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one of the really interesting aspects of
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of grin's operations is the way you have
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been able to extend the concept of micro
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Finance Beyond just credit into areas
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such as health insurance uh I wonder if
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you could explain uh some of those
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activities uh and how they have evolved
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uh what some of your challenges have
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been uh we do not consider micro uh
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insurance or health insurance as outside
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the financial services so we take it as
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a part of our activity As A bank's
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activity we started with giving credit
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at the same time taking savings so it's
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a always together savings and Credit uh
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formed our basic tool and then we
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encourag them to go into other direction
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s about the health and other issues and
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gradually we introduce Insurance
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programs uh life insurance was our first
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insurance program that we did and the
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loan insurance that we did and then we
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introduced the health insurance program
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and we saw that we can give the health
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insurance facility but how do you ensure
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they get the Health Service because the
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existing Health Service is not a very
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reliable Health Service we started
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creating uh Health Services through a
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separate company we created called
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gramine colan or gramine well-being
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through that we started setting up uh
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clinics in The Villages uh with a
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professional doctor on the top of the
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clinic and then paramedics and the
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health workers with a pathological lab
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attached to it so that you don't have to
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go to the city for simple pathological
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testings and so on so everything is
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self-contained and today we run about 51
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such clinics and on an average they make
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about 93% of the cost they cover another
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7% we can cover easily if we could
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retain the doctors in this clinics that
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became a big problem doctors don't want
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to stay in the village the way uh the
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kind of clinics that we operate in The
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Villages uh so most of the time almost
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half or onethird of the doctors are
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missing so that's why
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our popularity in the area is not as
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high as it should have been so now we
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are trying to redesign it uh do it in a
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different way uh trying to set up uh
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program at the Village level what we
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call gramine Health Management centers
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where our Focus would be on
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prevention our Focus would be on the
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healthy people first and then to the
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sick people and and the sick people we
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say this is where we do the early
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detection and early
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treatment without relying on the doctors
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in the village so doctor will be in the
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city wherever they are we are trying to
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link the doctor and the patients through
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Information Technology mobile phone in
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Bangladesh is everywhere like many other
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countries now mobile phone is a common
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phenomenon even in the poor families
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you'll see mobile phones very cheap so
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what we doing and these phones are
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internet enabled phones it also carries
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the internet service so for Internet
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service you don't have to worry every
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single piece of uh space within
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Bangladesh uh can uh receive uh internet
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services through the mobile phone so we
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want to do the Diagnostics and plug it
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in into mobile phone transmit all the
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images and all the data to the
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specialist doctor in the city who can
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analyze it and tell you what the problem
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is and talk to the patient on the mobile
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phone and some intermediary young girl
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who can go go between the patient and
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the doctors to carry on all the services
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so this is the new idea that we are
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promoting and the health insurance is a
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very popular one I must say provided we
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can guarantee that they get the services
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uh we promised is there a plan to extend
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this further with Google uh we have been
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discussing with many partners uh already
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we have created a social business with
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Intel Corporation it's called gramine
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Intel company in Bangladesh and through
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that company we are bringing mobile
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phone services in the villages with
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Healthcare software included into it
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there are initial one that we are doing
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with that is a series of question that
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we place before the pregnant mothers and
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the questions are designed in such a way
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by evaluating the answers uh the doctors
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can tell you whether she has a r risky
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pregnancy see immediately you have a
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first choice uh that we have screened
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off one risky pregnancy uh then you can
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concentrate on that one and gradually
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we'll be moving into ultraso bring the
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ultraso in the family in the house uh to
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do the image of the baby inside the home
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and transmit it to the doctor and the
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doctor can tell conf reconfirm it that
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yes she has a problem and we can zoom in
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to that particular patient and so on so
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we'll be we'll be discussing with other
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companies like Google uh I'll be in this
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trip I'll be meeting the Google people
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to talk about it one of the idea that
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I'll be uh discussing with them is to
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how to capture all the patient data
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simultaneously as we meet the people
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talk to people all this comes in a way
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that you can put in a central server
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through Google uh uh and you have a
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global uh patient data available and you
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can analyze them you can you can find
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out the incidence of each diseases how
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the treatment is working which treatment
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is working how they're improving and so
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on lots of information can come out of
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that there are many ways you can do that
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very simple now the technology is
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available uh it can be almost Costless
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but at the same time extremely valuable
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information about the healthcare so we
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want to see excite Google and and others
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to get involved Google already has a lot
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of healthcare related programs but we
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are trying to see how to extend the
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service into the area that we face and
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uh collaborate with them by basing your
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model on getting funds from the
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borrowers uh rather than getting say
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investment money from International
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investors um does that give you enough
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money to to make as many loans offer as
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many services as you could or do you do
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you think that um outside money actually
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could play a role as long as it doesn't
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dilute the primary focus which is social
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good and not making
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money uh within coming Bank uh we are
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allowed to take deposits from everybody
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it's not related limited to the
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borrowers only it's just like a bank we
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can take uh anybody's deposits so that's
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open with inome in Bank uh each of our
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branch is required
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to make enough deposit mobilize enough
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deposit to carry out all the lending
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they do so that branches don't have to
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borrow from the head office don't have
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to borrow from another Branch so they
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are self sufficient with their money on
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top of it we encourage them to build up
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enough um uh cushion of safe reserves of
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the deposits because of the problem of
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uh disasters we have very frequent
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disasters at time of disaster you can't
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get your money back but you need to lend
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money more money than you did before to
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get people out of the problem they have
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face so we want to build up that cushion
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usually we recommend at least uh 30% 33%
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uh Reserve should be kept within that
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system uh today uh we have more than 30%
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Reserve or 37% Reser in our all our in
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the whole of gamine Bank some branches
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have more some branches have less but
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average of
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37% uh we had no problem with the
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deposits we have enough deposits uh in
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that so we the question of borrowing
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from outside never occurred to us
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because we have enough money and I keep
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telling people that um literally no
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matter where we live we live in an ocean
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of
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money but the problem is the poor people
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cannot take a seep out of it that's the
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problem shortage of money is not there
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people have plenty of money they put in
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the bank uh people will very happy to
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the bank branch came near their home
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because vill just don't have branches of
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Banks Banks are all concentrated in the
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cities uh so if they have to put the
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money in the bank they have to go to the
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city and the town uh where the banks
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exist Bank BRS exist so gramine Bank
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Works in The Villages so it's a very
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convenient place people withdraw their
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money from the cities put it their near
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home because it's handy they can go
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anywhere anytime they go want they want
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pick up the money so we have enough of
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that money and we do not see any reason
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that it will ever dry out having said
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that uh what is the amount of deposit
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coming from the borrower themselves we
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lend out over $100 million a month
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through gramine bank today out of that
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money uh nearly half of that money comes
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from the borrowers own deposits so it's
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quite a substantial amount of money the
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borrowers to put in uh and that money
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keeps growing because everybody's uh
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putting additional deposits every week
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so it keeps growing and growing so they
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they have their own savings account at
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the same time other people can put in
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money there uh sometimes we see that
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maybe in certain brands we have too much
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money that uh what we should do keep
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that level of deposit without expanding
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the business we encourage them to expand
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the business rather than build up uh too
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much deposits
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